(cont from June 25 04)
WALK ONE
June 3 2004
Midnight. The twelve hundred block of Walnut Street. Not my usual time to be out and about. But this is a once in a lifetime event and not to be missed. A surprise ending. A fitting start.
I’m sitting on the stone wall across from the cottage at 1264 Walnut. Four years ago I bought this house, accepted stewardship of it, planned to live there always. Two years later, responding to the need to be, not in a hollow, but, once again on a hill I sold her. But, as with all places where I have lived (and lord, there have been many) part of me continued to inhabit that house and I have kept watch over her. (Her name is Orchard Cottage, by the way.)
A month or so ago a man with a camera in front of the house caused me to brake my bike and swerve back to ask if it was up for sale again. Turned out he wasn’t a realtor but the architect involved in her relocating. To Pender Island. “………where it will have a view.” When he told me this I got shivers and tears and realized how much I felt I had abandoned her to the ‘hollow’ while I had gone on to ‘a hill’.
A week ago when I had gone by, before any real change had occurred, I saw that one blind was partly raised and a robin was belting out a joyous song on the roof. The house was winking at me!
Tonight she is going to be moved.
I’ve said my private goodbyes on previous goodbye visits. Walked around her and touched all four corners. Expressed gratitude for the shelter and nurturing and all that I learned here. Moved bushes and ferns and flowers that I had planted and carried them away to my present house on a hill. Scooped down and devoured cherries from the bountiful tree in the back garden, this time with Delightful Daughter-in-law. Remembered the genuine pulpit that had been acquired at a church sale and placed, reverently, under this cherry tree for the sermons it may wish to share. Remembered the clerical black and white cat who used to come by and sit on the pulpit and survey his congregation. The depth of pleasure of memory seems to correspond directly to how much the original moment was experienced. Oh I must have experienced wholeheartedly!
Tonight is a celebration. The neighbors have gathered. Curious cats are coaxed back indoors, Yoda by Jay to the safe outlook of the flat next door; Seymour obligingly follows his neighbor’s extended arm and pointing finger as she walks him homeward but his tail is twitching. We reminisce about changes on the block, exchange introductions with the newcomers, speculate on the cost of moving an entire house, decide that, with aforethought, we could have planned a neighborhood party around this event.
I mention that I am grateful someone earlier pointed out to me that the signs warning not to park on this block referred to AM not PM or I would have missed it all. Midnight! Not noon!
A police car arrives and two officers wish us, “Good morning.” Which is received with surprised amusement by those of us who have not yet been to bed. “I phoned and reported a house being stolen,” one of the neighbors jokes.
A traffic commissionaire ghosts by on his scooter.
It is quite surreal.
Much preparation had gone into this move. The chimney was taken down and the bricks carefully cleaned and stacked and taken away. I wonder where they are now and what purpose they are serving. Something decorative I would imagine, a garden walk or wall. The front porch was removed – its absence gave her a look of surprise, if not astonishment, the way people can look when their bangs are are newly and too shortly cut.
The house was jacked up and put on steel beams and wheels put underneath. I missed all this – darn! – but perhaps it would have been too nerve-wracking for us both.
Much preparation went into this move but tonight is not at all anti-climatical!
I had arrived at ten-thirty, not wanting to miss anything, and sat in the car, in the dark, in the silence staring at the house staring back at me. Sat and sat and thought that I could have brought my knitting and knit some of this adventure into a garment.
Suddenly things began to happen. (to be cont.)